


We Meet Again

by minnabird



Series: Journeys End in Lovers Meeting [1]
Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Misunderstandings, Reunions, light Sian/Bacta but I don't want to promise shippiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 09:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10896381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: “Who are you?” The voice cut through the rain and the wind and his ribcage, punching straight into his heart. Bacta knew the rusty edge to it, the usually unshakeable confidence.Bacta visits Kamino alone to chase down the person using his mailbox. He was certain, on Phindar, that the Force would bring him to Sian, but he hadn’t expected it to happen in this time and this place. But who is Sian now, to him and to the galaxy?





	We Meet Again

Inside, the rain would have been a steady murmur, a comforting blanket settling over Kamino. But to the figure braving the night, it was an onslaught, battering and washing over slicker-covered shoulders. A hood cast the figure's face into full shadow, which only deepened as the person tugged it down.

Bacta muttered under his breath as he looked through the macrobinoculars. No amount of zooming or night vision would show him that person’s face – only the outline of them as they stopped, at last, in front of Bacta’s old mailbox.

He’d waited on this roof for days on end, always watching, just for this moment. He considered just jumping down to street level and confronting the person immediately. Whoever it was,  _ they _ had D20, the Murder Ball plans, and access to a resource he thought was only his. Curiosity itched inside him. But he forced himself still until the person began to move back the way they had come. Only then did he drop down to the ground, keeping to the shadows as he followed them.

For a short time, Bacta thought he would remain unnoticed. He trailed them through winding streets, among low buildings. Suddenly, a narrow road opened up into a small plaza lined with speeder bikes. Bacta tensed, waiting in the shadows of the road, as his quarry walked among the bikes. Less than ten meters away lay the entrance to a causeway, which ran in a straight white line over the churning waters beyond the plaza.

That seemed to be the other person’s destination, and they strode toward it without stopping for a bike. Bacta let out a slow breath. That, at least, made his job easier.

Not easy enough. The plaza itself provided little cover, but the causeway beyond had none: the barriers on either side rose only to knee height, interrupted only by the thin stalks of streetlights. Bacta’s black clothing, so useful during the stakeout, would stand out against the causeway. Bacta did some mental calculations. The person, whoever they were, hadn’t looked back once since leaving the mailbox. Clearly, they were comfortable here, not expecting trouble. Bacta would have to place his hope in that.

He let a little more space grow between them, then followed behind his quarry, matching his pace to theirs. As he stepped onto the causeway, the thrashing waves joined the rain in its assault, breaking on the duracrete barriers and tossing spray over his head. The water slid off his clothing, but it sloshed into his boots and trailed cold fingers down his neck. Bacta spared a thought for clone armor; it had kept the stuff off better.

Lightning lit the night like a flash grenade. In that dazzling instant, Bacta saw that the figure had stopped, the shape of their head questing. The world went dark again, and Bacta stilled, his breath caged in his chest. Slowly, his night vision returned.

The figure was closer – and facing him.

Bacta’s hand went automatically to the blaster at his hip, but the other person didn’t move to attack. “Who are you?” The voice cut through the rain and the wind and his ribcage, punching straight into his heart. Bacta knew the rusty edge to it, the usually unshakeable confidence.

He thought of a name on a comm unit. The last time he’d heard this voice, and the way she had sounded like hearing from him was a curse, or, maybe worse, an annoyance. The ignored calls, and the feeling like the world was closing in around him.

Out of the tumult of his emotions, anger rose to the surface. “No, who are  _ you _ ?” he asked. He could hear the rasp of tears in his voice already, but he set his jaw and stepped forward. “Last time I talked to you, you  _ hung up on me _ . And now you’re stealing my mailbox? My…?” He waved a hand, not wanting to mention D20, even though she must have him. “I just…don’t…understand.”

Sian was still, her hood still up. If she had a reaction to any of this, Bacta couldn’t detect it. “It  _ is _ you,” she said at last. Her voice was only a thread at this distance, and there was a vulnerability in it that Bacta wanted to grab at like a lifeline.  _ Don’t go, _ he thought, but couldn’t say. He was afraid she would vanish into smoke again if he put pressure on her now.

_ You must be watchful and open at the same time, _ Sian had said once, explaining to the younglings how to use the Force in battle.  _ If you’re too afraid, you won’t see the real attack coming because you’re too busy imagining what could come to feel the change in the air. You must let the Force flow in you. _ Bacta took a breath and opened himself up: not to the Force, but to hope, letting his uncertainty hang in the air like a white flag without overwhelming him with doubt.

Sian stepped closer.

Bacta felt her hand wrap like a vice grip around his arm. “This isn’t the place to have this conversation,” she said. Her voice was stronger, but there was still that strained note in her voice. “Let’s go,” she said, and pulled him with her as she began to hurry down the causeway again.

This island, smaller than the one they had left, was a neighborhood Bacta knew only for its raucous cantina and bad reputation. If Sian was a bounty hunter now, as their last conversation had suggested, he supposed it made sense for her to be here. Still, the wrongness of it jangled; he still saw the image of the Jedi master he had so admired superimposed over this wary new woman. He followed her through a warren of streets. The buildings jutted second story extensions over the streets, metal pods propped on struts set at crazed angles. Sian stopped under one of these, and swarmed up a ladder. “Come,” came her voice through the hatch, and Bacta did.

Sian was nowhere to be seen when he got up there. Rain sang on the metal roof, and lights around the room bathed the small space in a yellow glow. The bed was a mound of blankets and cushions on the floor, and the main focus of the room seemed to be a screen with a table under it. A blaster lay in pieces on the table. Bacta’s eyes darted around the room, looking for any sign of D20, but he couldn’t see the little astromech. There was only one door.

It opened with a  _ swoosh _ , and Sian emerged, now without her slicker. Seeing her face for the first time, Bacta felt like he’d taken a blaster bolt to the chest. There were the same pale eyes, set under dark horn spots; the freckles; the strong line of her chin. Her hair was gone entirely, shaved down to stubble, and it only emphasized the harsh angles of her face. She looked…older. Not in the same way Bacta did, aged ten years to her five, but as if life had worn her down the way the rains here wore down rock.

Instead of coming closer, she leaned against the wall there, as far away from Bacta as she could get, her eyes locked on his face.

“I guess that’s fair,” Bacta said. “You don’t have any reason to trust me, after what happened with my brothers.”

Sian’s eyes narrowed. “Are you working for the Empire?” she spat.

“What?” Bacta’s voice went up several octaves in his shock. “The  _ Empire? _ Me?”

“You found me!” Sian snarled, pushing off the wall. “Do you know how long I went with no one recognizing me? But then, you. Did you tell them that I would come quietly for you?” Her hand went to a blaster at her hip, and Bacta raised his own hands, feeling sick. She didn’t draw. “Did they offer you rank?” she added quietly. “Your face in the propos, like Commander Synox?”

“Sian,” Bacta said, only just managing to get it out through his tight throat. Something in his voice, his face, must have given her pause. “You know me better than that. Or at least, I thought you did when you trusted me with the younglings. Everything I am now, I owe to you, not the Empire.”

She wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes fixed on a spot past his shoulder, she said, “Then why couldn’t you just let me stay dead?”

Bacta couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Those words had carved out his center, leaving just the pain blazing in its wake. He had thought – he had hoped she had loved him, too, at the end. He had known in his bones that they could trust each other. That obviously wasn’t true.

“If that’s how you feel,” he said, enunciating each word as clearly as he could, struggling to sound stoic, “then I’ll leave.” He had straightened unconsciously into the stance of a soldier. “But not until you give me back what’s mine.” When she finally looked up at him, her eyes unreadable, he clarified, “My  _ mail. _ My astromech droid was confiscated and sent back here, and I doubt you left him alone.”

Sian’s eyebrows snapped together. “R2-D20 is mine,” she said. “And you broke him.”

“He broke himself!” Bacta said. “He was a member of our crew, and he helped us out of a tight situation, and, yes, he got electrocuted.” He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Did you fix him?” he asked.

“I’m working on it,” Sian said, starting to edge around the room. Not towards him, but towards the screen. “He had a very interesting... _ virus _ on him,” she added slyly. The screen came to life, and she tapped a few keys. Bacta recognized the schematics they’d stolen. “Could be worth a lot, to the right people.”

“Sian, don’t,” Bacta said, forgetting to speak to her as a potential enemy.

“Why not? What are you doing with plans to an Imperial superweapon, Bacta?” Bacta stared at her and Sian sighed, looking back to the screen. “I’ve had a little time to study it. It’s…a terrifying prospect. Is it real?”

Bacta considered, then said, “Under construction.”

“What are you  _ doing _ with this?” This was the most she had sounded like the Sian he knew since she’d brought him up here, her voice laden with weariness and maybe a note of concern.

“Can I trust you?” It was a question he hated asking. “Given what you are now.”

Sian let out a long sigh, pulling out the chair at the table and sitting in it. She buried her head in her hands. “I’m still me, Bacta,” she said at last.

“A Jedi?” he asked.

She glared at him. “A Force-wielder, yes. Jedi? I’m not so sure. The Empire betrayed the Jedi, but the Order betrayed the whole galaxy when they involved themselves in a war they had no place in. When they enslaved you and your brothers, Bacta.” Bacta flinched. He preferred not to think of it that way. She sighed, and turned away again. “The good Jedi I knew, the younglings, they didn’t deserve to die. But I’m not sure the Order deserved to survive. It was as corrupt at the end as the Republic.”

He tried not to think about that, either. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard her criticize the war, but he had never heard her go so far. “But you are you. The good person I knew.”

He heard the smile in her voice. “Never as good as you thought.” For a moment, he lost his breath.

He came forward, leaning against the table to look at her. “We’re trying to find a Rebel contact to give that information to. Maybe it can help them fight it.”

She looked up at him in surprise, and their eyes met. “You’re really with them, aren’t you?” she said finally. “That smuggler and that bounty hunter. I couldn’t make myself understand why you would team up with people like that. It was never your style.”

“Apparently it’s yours, which means it was mine all along,” Bacta said.

She ignored the attempt at a joke. “What I said about the Empire. I’d convinced myself you were a plant of some kind. It made more sense to me than…”

“Than me getting involved with some people in a Mos Eisley cantina and sticking with them through five years and the disintegration of a rebel cell? Yeah, sounds pretty unlikely, when I stop to think about it,” Bacta said.

“You’re telling me so much. I could use so much of this against you. Why?” Her voice was soft, and Bacta hunkered down, as if to get closer to the warmth of it.

It was easier to say it if he kept his tone casual, so he did. “Because I think I’ll always have faith in you.”

“That solves the mystery of your crew,” she said. “I should have known. You always pick the strangest people to be loyal to, Bacta.” She took a deep breath, and reached out to place a hand on his chest. Their eyes met again, and hers were uncharacteristically hesitant. “I’m glad you’re not Imperial.”

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

She looked away at that, and leaned towards the screen, her hand reaching under it. She pulled a datacard out, and held it out to Bacta. “I transferred the plans to this, and wiped them from D20’s memory. He can make his choice of where he wants to go after he’s fixed, but these are safer in your hands.”

It felt like a goodbye, and Bacta knew suddenly that, even though knowing she was alive was worth a lot, leaving her would hurt too much now. “Come with me,” he said. Her face went politely blank, and Bacta took another risk. “You could solve another problem we have. There’s a Force-sensitive child on board, and we need a teacher.”

Shock blazed in her eyes, and she pushed away from him entirely. “Where did you get– Bacta, you can’t ask me…”

“You taught younglings all the time during the Clone Wars,” Bacta said. “I saw you with them. You were good. And he could use an influence like you right now. He hasn’t had the best childhood, and he’s learned a lot of dark Force stuff.”

“You’re asking me to put myself in danger–”

He reached out, taking hold of her arms. He gentled his grip almost immediately. “Sian, you’re already in danger. You’ll always be in danger. But don’t you want to do some good in all of this? We haven’t found more Rebel contacts yet, but we will, and when we do we’ll probably go back to that stuff. Helping  _ change _ the galaxy. A war that’ll actually mean something.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Sian said. When he opened his mouth to protest, she met his eyes, her own steady. “I don’t know if I’ll stick around, but I can try. I’m a good bounty hunter, but it’s just a way to get by.” She pulled away at last. “And I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be, Bacta. To you. That kiss…”

“It was a long time ago,” Bacta said, swallowing hard. “It’s okay. I don’t expect anything.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Sian said.

“That’s as close to a plan as we ever have,” Bacta said, and he made himself smile. After a moment, it became real. It would be good to have Sian around again. Something like a miracle, in a galaxy short on those lately.

  
* * *  
  


“Uncle Bacta!”

Tamlin hit Bacta in a tiny whirlwind of tears and reaching arms. Bacta caught him up, holding him tight. “Buddy,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s good to see you, Tamlin.”

“You’re never allowed to go away for so long again,” Tamlin said, a high-pitched demand.

“No, I won’t,” Bacta said.

“You have to  _ promise! _ ”

Bacta rubbed his hand over the back of Tamlin’s nubby head, letting him sniffle into his shoulder. The boy’s hands clutched tight at Bacta’s shirt. “I promise,” Bacta said. He gave them both a moment, then leaned back, looking into Tamlin’s face. “I’ve got someone for you to meet.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bit of what-if speculation. I adore Bacta so much, and I've been thinking about this at least since I listened to episode 72. And I'm glad to have been introduced to Sian through this, and hope she comes back. These guys kill me.


End file.
